


You'll put your eye out, kid

by spasticbirdie



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eye Trauma, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, It's a bit non-canon wrt to papyrus/undyne stuff but whatevs, Kid Fic, Major Character Injury, Orphan Undyne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 01:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spasticbirdie/pseuds/spasticbirdie
Summary: What, did you think she was BORN missing an eye?





	You'll put your eye out, kid

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, big shoutout to @thatonegojimun for [this really really REALLY excellent comic](https://e621.net/post/show/837920/2016-absurd_res-anthro-asgore_dreemurr-better_vers) which was the original inspiration for this entire fic.  
> Also, another big shoutout to mado @alphyies for betaing and for her general enthusiasm and encouragement!

On the surface, the rivers of Waterfall were a pure blue, reflecting the glowing stones above them and giving off an almost neon radiance. Deep towards the bottom, however, they were just as mucky and cloudy as any other river.

At the bottom of the river, a pair of yellow eyes appeared in the clouds of mud.

Undyne felt through the silt at the bottom of the riverbed, sending up a spinning haze of dirt in the water before her. She rubbed the clouds out of her eyes and kept digging through. _Come on, it only fell down a few minutes ago. Papyrus is gonna be so sad if I can’t find it…_

A glint of light bounced off something in the muck, and Undyne grabbed at it, her sudden movement kicking up even more dirt. Her hand closed around something angular and plastic, and she pulled the dirty item from the riverbed. Kicking off the bottom, she shot up towards the surface, clutching it to her chest.

“GOT IT!” She burst out of the river, holding Papyrus’s action figure triumphantly above her head, her face covered in muck and a small, sharp grin. Her old, too-big t-shirt was soaked and muddy, and her equally too-big shorts were heavy with water, dragging her down as she began paddling back to dry land.

On the riverbank, Papyrus jumped up, wiping his eyes as Undyne slogged over to the shore. He rubbed a dribble of snot off his face. “Th-thanks, Undyne…”

“Don’t worry about it!” Undyne handed Papyrus the action figure, a miniature robot holding a sword. She shook herself off, sending water and mud flying. “Now c’mon, it's this way!”

Undyne set off at a run, limbs flying in a less than graceful manner. Papyrus hurried to keep up, stumbling over the roots and vines that crisscrossed the paths of Waterfall. Undyne splashed across a shallow stream, hopped a couple of rocks, and then the two were standing in a clear cave.

Papyrus looked around. This was nearby the snail farm, Napstablook and Metta’s houses, and…

“Um… are you sure we're allowed down here, Undyne?”

“Sure I'm sure!” Undyne jumped off the smooth, damp stone floor and splashed into water that was a bit less clear than the rest. After a moment's hesitation, Papyrus followed, wading through the water that seemed a bit closer to solid than usual and stepping over pieces of junk and refuse.

The dump was a dump, obviously. The water streamed down from above, splashed momentarily on the shelf where trash collected, and then fell down again into the darkness below. The piles were made up of all sorts of things; old electronics, appliances, pieces of scrap, rotten food, anything the owners of didn't want anymore.

Undyne leapt expertly from mound to mound while Papyrus slogged through the water behind her. “Undyne, I really don’t think we’re allowed back here…”

“Don’t worry about it! It’s totally safe, I come here all the time!” Undyne landed on another pile of trash, which promptly collapsed under her weight, burying her. She poked her head out, her still-grinning face now even dirtier. “See? It’s safe, promise! Now c’mon, that thing is just over here!”

Undyne ran off, Papyrus losing her in the dim light of the dump. As he hurried to catch up, he spotted something bright in the distance, with Undyne sitting in front of it.

It was a bed of flowers. Yellow buttercups, growing in a thick bed in defiance of the teeming garbage surrounding them. Undyne sat on a wooden plank sticking out of the water, looking at the flowers.

“Wow…” Papyrus sloshed up next to Undyne, staring at the plants in wonder. “How’d they get here?”

“I ‘unno.” Undyne rocked back and forth a little. Now that they’d arrived at their destination, she had calmed down considerably. Maybe it was the flowers, maybe it was something else. “There was a big flood a little while ago and this wall of trash got pushed out and I found them behind it. Dunno how they got down here, though.”

The flowers seemed to almost glow in the dark, but not with the bioluminescence of the other plants of Waterfall. It was more like they were constantly bathed in natural sunlight that had no discernable source; Papyrus craned his neck up to the ceiling, but couldn’t see any light shining down from above that was bright enough to cast this glow on the plants.

They sat for a while, looking at the plants and listening to the water stream down.

“Have you ever picked one of them?” Papyrus asked.

“Nah.” Undyne uncrossed her legs and stood up.

“Why not?”

She was silent for a moment. Then she turned on her heel, crouched, and leapt off the pile of trash, splashing down in the water. Shaking water off, she turned back to Papyrus, smirking. “Flowers are duuuumb!”

As Papyrus wiped himself dry from Undyne’s latest splash, she began wading back the way they came. “Now c’mon, there’s something else I wanted to show you!”

“Undyne!” Papyrus hurried to keep up with his friend’s restless pace. Soon they had clambered out of the dump and were drying off in the intersection of the farm and the ghosts’ houses.

“Okay okay okay okay…” Undyne stopped and turned to Papyrus, grinning her toothy grin again. “Hang on.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She focused as hard as she could, concentrating on the feeling welling up deep inside of her, trying to build it up and turn it loose. A faint wind blew outward from her, sending pebbles and dust rolling away.

To Papyrus, it looked like she was desperately trying not to fart.

Finally, Undyne opened her eyes, focused on the cave wall, and let loose. “Nggg….Yaah!”

A swarm of blue spears materialized in the air around her, shot across the cavern, and smashed into the wall, sending up a cloud of dust and shards of rock. When it cleared, the wall was now covered in several deep gashes, like stab wounds in the granite.

Panting and sweating, Undyne turned to Papyrus. “Whaddya think?” she said proudly.

Papyrus’ eyes were practically shining. “Wow! Undyne, I didn’t know you could do magic too!”

Still breathing hard, Undyne stared at him. “Uhh... ‘too?’”

“Yeah!” Smiling, Papyrus raised one hand, the other still clutching his action figure, and all of the sudden, a shining white bone appeared floating above his palm. As Undyne watched, her mouth hanging open, the bone grew in his hand until it was almost as big as he was, floating over his head and letting off a faint glow from within.

Papyrus wound up and swung his hand down, sending the bone spinning through the air towards the same wall. It hit next to Undyne’s target with a deafening _BOOM_ , sending up an even bigger cloud of dust that nearly filled the room. When the cloud cleared, the wall had been reduced to a pile of rubble. Next to the destruction, the damage from Undyne’s attack looked less like stone stab wounds and more like tiny scratches.

Undyne stared at the wall, then at Papyrus, then back at the wall, and then flopped down in the dirt. Doing that one attack had taken a lot out of her, and seeing Papyrus do something even bigger, without even breaking a sweat, had taken the rest.

“Undyne? Are you okay? You look really sweaty.” Papyrus looked at Undyne with concern.

“Yeah...I’m fine.” Undyne stood up, a little unsteadily.

“So, uh...what d’you want to do now?” Papyrus rocked back and forth on his heels, watching Undyne expectantly.

“Mrgh. I dunno.” Undyne kicked at the ground. “Grillby’s, I guess.”

“I thought he said we were too young to be in there.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

They stood there, in uncomfortable silence. Papyrus fiddled with his action figure, then spoke up. “I should prob’ly go home, Dad’ll get worried.”

“Alright. Seeya.” Undyne stuffed her hands in her pockets, turned on heel, and walked off. She heard Papyrus call an uncertain goodbye after her that she didn't return.

She took a walk. Waterfall had lots of little pathways to get lost in, and she meandered aimlessly through them, slipping easily through crevices and hidden pathways. Finally, she came out into a wide open plain, a bit of rain falling from above and sprinkling on her head.

This was probably the most wide-open place in Waterfall. Undyne walked across the open plain, rain sprinkling down on her head, and soon enough she could almost pretend she couldn’t see the walls where she’d come in. Off in the distance, the lights of the capitol glimmered.

Undyne took a seat and lay down on her back, staring up at the ceiling. From this distance, the shining rocks in the ceiling were far enough that she could fool herself into thinking they weren’t rocks, but real stars, glimmering in space.

She’d never seen the surface. She’d heard tales and stories galore, about life above, the war, the barrier sealing them in, and the prophecy. In the stories she’d heard, there was no ceiling above them and no cave walls fencing them in; the sky stretched away into infinity, and the light came from the sun, not from gemstones and mushrooms.

The first time she’d heard it, she almost couldn’t believe it. If there wasn’t a ceiling, then how did humans know where the world ended? And the whole story of the sun–a giant, flaming star, thousands of times bigger than the earth–always made her skeptical.

But even if they were just stories, they sounded incredible. And even if the surface wasn’t all the stories made it out to be, even if it did have a ceiling and no impossibly huge ball of fire keeping it warm…

Undyne still wanted to see it.

She lay on her back a while longer, not really thinking about anything, just staring up at the lights in the ceiling, thinking about how far away they were.

Then, she got up and began the long walk back. She took the dark, hidden paths, avoiding the more populous part of Waterfall. The crevices she slipped through were almost pitch-black, making her navigate by touch.

Finally, she saw the faint glow of the path up ahead. As Undyne clambered back out of the darkness, she suddenly felt an old, rough claw on her shoulder.

“Now what’re you doing out here all alone, little lady?” A familiar, friendly voice addressed Undyne.

She sighed, not unhappily. “Hi, Gerson.”

Cackling, Gerson patted Undyne on the back. “Kids like you shouldn’t be out here all alone! What if some mean old monster were to come along-” He rested both hands on her shoulders, drumming his fingers on her back. “-and gobble you up!”

Undyne squealed as Gerson suddenly grabbed her around the waist and lifted her into the air. “Gerson!” She laughed as the old turtle swung her around in the air before resting her on his shoulders.

“Ooof!” He stumbled melodramatically as Undyne’s weight came down on his back. “Either I’m gettin’ too old for this or you’re gettin’ too heavy, girl! And I know I ain’t gettin’ too old!”

Undyne rolled her eyes. “You know I know you’re faking that, right?”

Gerson ignored her, continuing to sway dramatically. “Oh, I don’t quite know how much longer I can go on!” He collapsed to his knees, bending over. “Tell my wife...I...love…”

He jumped up straight again, cackling. “Just kiddin’! I ain’t ever even had a wife!”

Undyne couldn’t help but laugh; Gerson pulled this routine all the time, but it never failed to perk her up a little.

“Now!” the crotchety old turtle said, assuming the straight-backed, attentive stance of a guardsman, the severity of which was slightly undermined by the toddler on his back, “Corporal Undyne, a-tennn shun!”

“Sir! Yes sir!” Undyne hopped down off the turtle’s back, snapping into a salute. The action made the gangly fish girl’s limbs stuck out at sharp angles, making her look like a scaly bag of sticks.

“Corporal, are you prepared for your daily patrol, protecting the Underground from any who would wish it and its citizens harm?”

“Yes sir!”

“And what is the code of the Royal Guard?”

Undyne held the salute as she recited the code dutifully. “Protect the weak, stand up to the strong, and keep the peace, all day long!”

“Good lass! Keep this up, you’ll be leading the Guard in no time!” Gerson turned on heel, goose-stepping forward. “Let us march!”

Undyne nodded seriously, and followed suit.

Their “patrol” followed the same route every day; through the most well-lit of Waterfall’s pathways, the ones that didn’t actually need much patrolling. From what Undyne had experienced, being in the Royal Guard consisted mainly of walking around and greeting the denizens of Waterfall with a friendly, but authoritative nod. Undyne did her best to match Gerson’s gait; her legs ramrod-straight and back straighter, taking even steps to the same beat as the elderly turtle.

Mostly, not much happened. They walked around Waterfall, Gerson occasionally shouted commands to Undyne that she followed to the best of her ability, and after their “patrol,” he let her hang around the shop for a while. Deep down, she had an inkling that Gerson was just trying to keep her busy, but she went along with it all the same.

“Company… halt!” Gerson threw up a hand, and Undyne nearly tripped over herself trying to stop.

She peered around Gerson’s shell. Ahead of him was a large rock that he was eyeing intently. He motioned Undyne to come closer and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You see that rock?”

Undyne looked at the rock. She did indeed see that rock. She turned back to Gerson and nodded seriously.

Gerson nodded back. “Now it may have been just a trick of these old eyes, but I believe I saw someone dart behind it just now. A someone who saw the Royal Guard coming and made themselves scarce just for us.”

Undyne looked back to the rock. Her young eyes hadn’t seen anything or anyone dart behind it, but it seemed to her there was a lot her young eyes missed that Gerson’s old ones caught.

She stared hard at the rock. It didn’t look all that ominous or dangerous.

“Now I know what you’re thinking- ‘Gerson, that rock doesn’t look all that ominous or dangerous. What could possibly be behind there? Why not just go around and check it out?’”

Undyne had to agree. It wasn’t even that big a rock; you’d practically have to lie down to effectively hide behind it.

“Because, my dear girl, that…” Gerson paused for effect, and peered intently back at the rock. “Is how…”

“THEY GETCHA!” He grabbed Undyne suddenly by the shoulder, making her jump and forcing a strangled yelp from her throat before she turned to Gerson with annoyance in her eyes. “Heh heh, just foolin’, girl. But…” Gerson’s tone grew serious. “As a member of the Guard, you must always be on the lookout for danger. Even the small, tiny, insignificant, potential little dangers must be carefully monitored and dealt with.”

Undyne nodded, sensing an important lesson being imparted. Gerson nodded sagely in response. “Now...how do you think we should deal with these shady figures?”

“Umm…” Undyne looked at the rock again. “I could go n’ jump over the rock and take em’ by surprise?”

“There you go again! Always rushing into danger! Now what would you do if there was, in fact, NOT anyone behind the rock, and said rock was only a lure, a distraction to draw you out, hmm? You’d be jumping right into…” Another dramatic pause. “A trap!”

Undyne gulped, imagining herself leaping over the rock to nothing and suddenly finding herself surrounded, outnumbered and outmatched. “Alright… so what do we do?”

Gerson stroked his beard. “Well, now...if we can’t check it out closer on account’a it maybe being bait…” He grinned conspiratorially at Undyne. “Then we’ll just have to get rid of the bait altogether.” He rolled up one sleeve.

Undyne was puzzled for a moment, then comprehension dawned on her face, followed by her eyes lighting up like all the stars on Waterfall’s ceiling. “Are you gonna…”

“Oh, I’m gonna.” Gerson cackled softly. “It’s time for the Hammer of Justice to go to work.”

Undyne’s face was lit up, and she let out a little squeal of delight. Gerson quickly shushed her, and she tried to contain herself as she watched the old war-tortoise go to work.

Sleeve rolled up, Gerson gave the rock one hell of a stinkeye as he wound up, looking like he was preparing to throw a blazing fastball. He swung his arm once, twice, three times around in a circle. On the fourth loop, a green field started growing around his arm, and by the fifth, it was like a thick fog had materialized there. He kept swinging his arm as the aura thickened, never taking his eye off the rock. His windmilling arm kicked up a wind, one strong enough to blow Undyne’s hair back from her face as she watched, awestruck.

Finally, he stopped his arm, wound up one more time, and swung overhand towards the rock. As his arm chopped downwards, the aura stretched out and widened into a green hammer, the color of fresh grass, the head a huge cylinder.

The hammer struck the rock, and it wasn’t so much that the rock was shattered as it ceased to exist; no rubble, no dust cloud, nothing. The hammer simply cleaved down and erased the rock from existence. After wiping the boulder out, it hit the ground with an earth-shaking _SLAM_ , making Undyne jump and cheer in glee.

“You got it!” She’d seen Gerson do the Hammer only a few times, but it never disappointed. The previous exhortations of caution forgotten, she ran up to the boulder’s remains, or lack thereof. The Hammer had pounded a perfect circle into the ground.

“Yea ha ha! ‘Course I did!” Gerson’s laughter sounded a little strained; as Undyne ran up to the targeted rock, he stayed back, hands on his knees, catching his breath. “Yea ha...hoo, I really am gettin’ too old for this,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

Undyne didn’t hear him. She circled the impact site a few more times, then ran back to Gerson, eyes still shining. He got his wind back and stood as the small fish girl ran, jumped, and tackled him in a hug, nearly knocking his wind right back out.

“Ooof! Watch it there, girl!” Gerson caught Undyne and swept her back up onto his shoulders, knees buckling a little, for real this time. “Now...I think that’s enough patrolling for today! Let’s get you home.”

Undyne on his back, Gerson set off back through Waterfall. Undyne bounced and fidgeted with residual excitement from seeing the old warrior in action, but slowly subsided, thinking a little.

Gerson seemed to sense her thinking up a storm on top of his head. “What’s on yer mind, lass?”

“Well…” Undyne prodded and fiddled with Gerson’s old pith helmet. “Gerson? How old were you when you first started using magic?”

The tortoise went quiet. “Well now… I must say, I don’t rightly recall. When you’ve lived as long as me, yer memory gets a little foggy about some things, heh heh heh.” There wasn’t much humor in his laughter. “I suppose… around when I joined the Royal Army. They gave us all combat training, I had an aptitude for it, and well… you know the rest. The war, humans and monsters, the Hammer of Justice, all that malarkey.”

“So… how old were you?” Undyne inquired.

“Well… I was older than you, that’s for certain. Not much, but I wasn’t a-” Gerson jostled Undyne on his shoulders, “-a little snot-nosed, over inquisitive little booger like you!” Undyne giggled. “But to answer yer question, I reckon about...oh, five or six years older than ya.” He went quiet for a moment. “Suppose they took us young, they did.”

“Oh.” Undyne leaned on his helmet, thinking. They walked on in silence until they reached the quiet, clear cave near the farm, the ghosts’ houses, and the dump.

Gerson saw the remains of the wall Undyne and Papyrus had let loose on, and gave a low whistle. “Well, ain’t that a sight!” He squeezed Undyne’s leg. “Must’ve been those shady customers we ran off earlier! Better be on your guard!”

“Uh...yeah.” Undyne responded. She looked at the wall again; her tiny scratches, and Papyrus’ giant pile of rubble. She shifted uneasily.

Gerson seemed to notice her tense up.

Letting Undyne off his shoulders, Gerson patted her on the head. “Alright, you run along now, kiddo. Don’t go beatin’ the mailman up again.” His tone was friendly, but a little distant. He kept looking at the shattered wall.

“I wooooon’t,” Undyne replied in a tone that made no promises. She turned and began her limb-flailing run.

“Undyne!”

She stopped at Gerson’s call. He reached a hand out, lowered it, raised it again, then seemed to give up. “Don’t… don’t go bein’ in all that big a hurry to grow up.”

She blinked. Gerson struggled to find the words for a moment. “All I mean is, it’s a big world out there. An’ there’s more to life than fightin’, and guardin’, and usin’ magic.” His tone had gone quiet, quieter than Undyne had ever heard him, and for a moment, he looked old, older than Undyne had ever seen him.

Gerson started, then stopped. “Just be good, kid.” He turned and walked off towards his shop, leaving Undyne alone in the wide, quiet cave. She watched him go, then turned and continued the way she had been going, much more slowly this time.

She didn’t ever let Gerson take her home. Sure, she let him piggyback her to the cave, a ride which she suspected she really _was_ getting too big for, but she never let Gerson take her _home_ home. She never let him see where she lived.

Because she didn’t really have a place to live.

Walking up the pathway next to the one leading to the ghosts’ houses, Undyne hit a chain-link fence, much like the old and rusted-out one by the dump, and clambered over it in a practiced motion. Beyond the fence was a dead end, a small little dump that had been abandoned when people realized they could just throw their trash in the water without any real consequences. It didn’t make much sense to keep trash on land when there was a seemingly bottomless pit to chuck it into.

This wasn’t much of a home, but it was at least a safe-ish place to sleep.

Undyne tromped through the garbage, absentmindedly kicking a can along. A makeshift lean-to with an old mattress underneath served as her bed. She flopped down on it, staring at the thin tarp stretched above her.

A lot had happened today. The image of Papyrus effortlessly blasting the wall to rubble still hung in her brain, now accompanied with Gerson flattening the boulder out of existence. She thought of her own attempt - a few spears that had barely scratched the rock, even that taking all her strength - and sighed.

Gerson had said he hadn’t been much older than her when he’d joined the Royal Army. He said they tested everyone and trained them, but he _had_ to know he could do magic before then, right? Undyne had always felt it in her, like a resting animal deep inside her that she could feel, but couldn’t quite identify. Like seeing a shadow in your peripheral vision that no matter how quickly you turned, you couldn’t make any clearer.

Until recently, that is. The animal had started waking up. Undyne could see the shadow in the corner of her eye, and wanted to catch it, tame it, master it.

Clearly Papyrus already had, she thought with a hint of bitterness. Was probably genetic, or something. Magic running strong in his family.

She had to get better. She had to get stronger. She had to-

_Don’t go bein’ in all that big a hurry to grow up._

Gerson’s voice echoed in her head. She thought about the old tortoise; the “Hammer of Justice,” hero of the war, now just an old, friendly guy who lived on her block.

How much time had he had before being sent off to war?

Undyne stared at the tarp above her, bounced on the mattress a little, and got back up. She couldn’t think here. She couldn’t say why, but it wasn’t the right place. Neither was Napstablook’s house, or Hotland, or Snowdin…

She thought of the flowers again, yellow as the sun she’d never seen, growing among heaps of garbage. That was the right place, she decided.

She scaled the fence again, and soon was splashing through the dump, pants that had barely dried from earlier getting filled with muddy water again. The dump was empty, as usual.

Finally, she saw the telltale flash of yellow ahead and pushed onwards. The flowers were still there, as undisturbed as they were before. Undyne reached out to touch one, then hesitated; they were almost too beautiful to disturb, and looked even more perfect because of the garbage surrounding them. Eventually, she reached out and felt the soft petals of the flowers, which were slightly damp.

Working up her courage, she lifted herself out of the water and onto the small patch of land the flowers inhabited. They came up past her knees and waved gently back and forth as she walked carefully to the center of the patch.

At the center, she carefully pushed some flowers out of the way, laid down, and stared upwards at the glimmering ceiling of Waterfall, the sounds of rushing water all around her.

She laid there and thought. And eventually, she slept; having no dreams, but hearing quiet voices she’d never heard before.

 

When Undyne woke up, the lights on the ceiling were dimmer; it was what passed for early morning in the Underground. She sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning.

She felt better. Undyne couldn’t quite explain why, but sleeping among the flowers had calmed her mind, soothed the turmoil brewing inside of her. Besides that, she felt like she’d had the best sleep in weeks.

She was ready. She didn't really know what for, but she felt prepared to head out, face the day, and-

“...a little farther…”

Undyne’s ears perked up. She crouched in the flowers, listening. From back the way she had come from, she heard voices, and suddenly remembered she wasn't really supposed to be down here.

“Yeah, over here…”

Instead of leaping into the water with a cannonball splash as she planned, Undyne slipped carefully into the water, moving without a sound. She moved from one pile of trash to another.

“Okay, bring her down here.”

Peeking over a mound of indeterminate trash, Undyne found the source of the voices.

Standing in a tight clump, right at the edge where the water fell over into nothingness, was a group of three monsters, all surrounding a fourth. From Undyne’s angle, all but the fourth had their backs to her.

“Alright, c’mon,” one of the three said threateningly. “Bring it out.”

The fourth monster, the one surrounded by the others, shuddered and reached into her pocket. She was a small, yellow-scaled lizard, wearing a white coat that was too big on her and glasses with the same poor fit. She looked about Undyne’s age.

From the girl’s pocket came a small metal contraption, like a box with legs and a small dish on its head. The girl set it down on a flat piece of garbage; what had once been a refrigerator, maybe. She dug in her pockets again and produced a remote control.

“U-uh…” the girl stammered out, “I-it's not much, I-I didn't have a lot of m-m-materials…”

She pressed some buttons, turned a dial, and the machine sprung to life. With a jerky gait, it began walking in a tight circle, a goose-stepping cube of metal.

Undyne watched from her hiding spot with fascination. That girl had made that _herself?_

“What, that's _it?”_

The lizard girl flinched at the monster's angry question. “I t-told you, I d-didn’t have the m-materials, or th-the time…”

“Well, _make_ the time, then!”

One of the monsters grabbed the machine,wound up, looked at it disdainfully, and threw it into the abyss. As it fell, it's legs continued steadily walking, dutifully moving back and forth until it disappeared in the gloom.

“Who's gonna be impressed by some dumb toy like that? Do better next time!”

The three monsters turned and began walking away. Undyne ducked back down.

Even though the girl was staring at the ground, even though she only muttered it, even Undyne heard her voice.

“...won't be a next time…”

The splashing footsteps of the bullies stopped. “What was that?”

“I-I said…” The girl took a deep breath. “Th-there won't b-be a next time. I-I'm done.”

There was a silence so long and so loud it hurt Undyne’s ears. Then the splashing footsteps moved back, and there was a grunt and the sound of a landing punch, followed by a splash.

Fearfully, Undyne peeked over the garbage again. The girl was lying in the water, doubled over, clutching her stomach. As Undyne watched, one of the bullies kicked her in the stomach, driving another weak gasp from her body and nudging her just a little closer to the edge.

Undyne’s breath caught in her throat. She sank back down, her knees shaking. _I need to get help oh no oh no they're gonna kill her or something oh no no no I need to go get Gerson he'll know what to do…._

_Protect the weak, stand up to the strong, and keep the peace, all day long._

The rhyme came back to Undyne, unbidden. It sounded hollow now, a stupid little song, like a schoolgirl playing at being a hero. _I can't, I can't do it, it's one thing to say it but there's three of them and one of me…_

“Well? Are you gonna take it back?”

Undyne took another look over the pile. The girl was trying to stand up, her snout bruised, one lens of her glasses broken. As she pulled herself up, one of the monsters grabbed her by the collar, yanked her glasses off her face, and hurled them into the abyss.

The frames turned over and over in the air as they seemed to slow mid-fall, catching the dim light of the rocks in the ceiling and magnifying them, bright and shiny against the endless void beyond them. The sole light in the darkness.

Something in Undyne snapped. Or maybe not; it wasn't a breaking of something inside her, but a sudden strengthening, reinforcing, steeling. Her legs stopped shaking, and were suddenly full of focused, ready energy. Her mind went crystal clear, like the light reflecting in the girl’s glasses had shone right through her.

With a mighty leap, Undyne was atop the pile of garbage. She sucked in a deep breath. “Leave her ALONE!”

The monsters all turned in surprise. The lizard girl, dangerously close to the edge and held only by her coat collar, looked as well, just as shocked as her tormentors..

Undyne was ad-libbing. “Leave her alone or you'll be sorry!”

The initial shock of being found out passed. The bullies saw who had shouted - the small, lanky girl who looked so dirty she almost blended into the garbage around her - and one of them laughed, half in relief. “Or what?”

“Or you'll be SORRY!” Undyne shouted.

Her voice echoed around the dump and faded into nothing. There was a moment of silence.

Finally, the monster holding the lizard girl let go of her collar. She dropped to the ground, still dangerously close to the edge, coughing.

The trio of monsters turned from the lizard girl and began moving towards Undyne. They spread out, surrounding her.

One of them laughed again. “Lemme say that again; what are you gonna do about it?”

Undyne didn't even need to focus this time. The animal wasn't hiding in the corner, it was on her shoulder, digging its claws in, ready to pounce.

“This,” she growled.

Undyne threw up a hand. With a short, low hum, a circle of spears materialized in the air above her, spinning in a circle and pointing to the sky.

The monsters surrounding her stopped short, uncertainty gripping them.

Undyne lowered her hand, clenched in a fist, and the spears lowered until they encircled her like a blue, glowing halo, pointing forward.

She opened her fist, and the spears shot off

The bullies yelped and leapt back as the spears slammed into where each of them had been seconds before. As each spear flew away, one at a time, a new spear materialized right in its place before shooting off again, a constant machine-gun stream soaring through the air. They rained down from Undyne’s perch, splashing into the dirty water and crashing into piles of garbage. Each one dissolved in a puff of blue particles moments after impact, clouds of smoke adding to the splashing water and tumbling debris.

It felt incredible. Instead of taking all her energy to send the spears flying, they seemed to strengthen her with each one she let loose. Undyne felt like she was sprinting while standing still, flying on the ground, moving without moving a muscle.

In the back of her mind, she heard a wild, triumphant roar.

The bullies had scattered, sloshing their way in a panic towards the exit. Undyne kept sending spears after them, most flying high over their heads. When she would think back later, she'd realize she hadn't hit a single one of them.

Breathing heavily, Undyne looked around; the dump was even more trashed, she was sweating heavily, and the girl…

The girl was getting slowly to her feet, leaning heavily on the broken refrigerator next to her and squinting without her glasses.

Undyne sighed in relief, raising a comforting hand. “It's okay, you're safe n-”

A spear whizzed past Undyne’s head and hit the edge of the waterfall right next to the lizard girl, who yelped and half-jumped, half-fell behind the fridge

Undyne would have jumped in shock, but she suddenly felt like all her muscles had gone tight and taut. She couldn't lower her arm. The ring of spears around her hummed with a deadly energy.

Right before the spears resumed their flight, Undyne heard that roar in the back of her mind again.

Undyne watched in horror as the refrigerator with the girl hiding behind it was riddled with spears, the metal clanging and bending under the assault. The girl was curled up behind the heavy appliance, covering her head and crying.

With a titanic effort, Undyne wrenched her arm sideways and up, redirecting the flurry of spears into the empty air over the abyss. As they flew out into empty space, the spears began curving and twisting, leaving wild trails of blue light in the dark.

Undyne wanted to scream, but she was frozen. It was like an electric current was running through her whole body and exiting through her outstretched hand. Her head felt like it was about to crack in two, and she didn’t know what those two halves would be.

_I can't control it I can't control it I'm not strong enough I’m too weak my head hurts everything hurts I'm going to die I'm going to die_

_I’m going to die._

The thought smashed through her mind like a brick through a window, and the current running through her body shut off almost instantaneously. The pain splitting her skull was overwhelming, and Undyne dropped to her knees, clutching her head as the halo of spears circling her dissipated. The spears flying through the void began winking out, one by one.

It felt like her hands on her temples were the only thing keeping her skull from splitting in two. Undyne squeezed her head so hard she heard her teeth grinding in her mouth; or maybe it was the roaring that was blasting through her brain.

The spears in the void spun wildly in their final moments.

Through the storm in her head, Undyne heard a few quiet splashing footsteps.

Then a scream. “Look ou-”

Undyne opened her eyes just barely enough to see a blue, slowly disappearing blur whiz directly at her face before darkness overtook her entirely.

 

She didn’t really wake up. “Waking up” seemed to imply a single event, going from unconsciousness to awake in a moment. Instead, she slid from the black void of dreamless sleep to some wasteland between waking and dreaming, seeing and hearing things that might have been real, might have been her imagination, observing all of it through some blurry filter and understanding none of it.

Finally, Undyne left the purgatory of sleep behind and began drifting towards consciousness. First, hearing; people talking, in hushed tones.

“Thanks again fer coming out, I didn’t know who else to call.” Undyne identified the first voice automatically, the sound familiar, the emotion not; Gerson, sounding exhausted, beaten, and sad. “I know ye don’t leave the ruins - well, ever, but there wasn’t any-”

“It’s all right, Gerson.” A new voice. Totally unfamiliar. “It was good that you called when you did.”

Gerson grunted in worried agreement. A pause. “So… will she…?”

“She’ll live.”

A sigh of relief. The new voice went on. “It was a rather close call. If I’d been a few minutes later, then…”

The sentence floated out into the air and hung there, heavy with implications. “Her eye was a lost cause, however. I saved her life, but it may have some effects that I can’t predict.” A note of maternal scolding crept into the voice. “What happened?”

“I don’t rightly know. That girl- you didn’t see her, she brought Undyne in and left in a hurry - said something about Undyne saving her life. I don’t know.” Gerson sighed. “I’m in your debt. _She’s_ in your debt, your majes-”

“Please, don’t. I’m no queen anymore.”

“Sorry, sorry. Old habits. Got a lot of ‘em.” A silence. “Thank you. Really.”

There was silence, the rustling of fabric. “I should be getting back, I think.”

“Aye.” A pause. “You’re always welcome, y’know. Ol’ Fluf- the king, he’s not really been… you know, for a while.”

“Hm.” The response was quiet and should have sounded neutral, but instead had a cold, icicle-sharp edge to it. A chair creaked. “Perhaps if he had, I would not have had to come here tonight.”

Gerson didn’t respond to that. There was a quiet swishing of fabric. “Goodbye, Gerson.” A pause. “It was good to see you.”

A door opened and closed. A chair creaked again, and Gerson sighed.

Slowly, Undyne tried to to open her eyes. The ceiling above her, dark purple-blue rocks with brightly glowing gems casting light down on her, swam into focus.

One by one, Undyne’s senses started coming back to her. Once they had, she wished they’d stayed gone; her throat felt painfully parched, all her muscles were sore and ragged, and her head was pounding so much she thought she might go right back to unconsciousness.

“Uhhhh…” Undyne groaned as she tried to sit up. Her entire body screamed with the effort, the room spinning dizzily around her. The blankets falling off her felt like they were made of sandpaper, and every little sensation on her skin was like a million pinpricks. If she had actually eaten anything in the past few hours, she felt certain she would be throwing it up right now.

She heard a series of quick, clopping footsteps, the curtain over the room’s entrance being drawn aside, and then Gerson was leaning over her, looking down with worry. “Undyne? Kiddo?”

Undyne gave up trying to sit up and fell back over onto her pillows, the little breath she had in her lungs forced out.

“Hey, hey, don’t try and force yourself.” Gerson’s voice had none of it’s usual cheer. “You need to rest, just lay down, now.”

Undyne groaned, her voice a dry rattle. Gerson heard the rasp in her voice and turned to the table next to the bed, lifting a jug of water to Undyne’s lips. “Careful, now. Not too much.” The water splashed over Undyne’s dry lips, dribbling over her chin and onto her shirt. She wanted to gulp down more of it, but all she could do was sit there and let Gerson pour it gently into her mouth.

“You’ve been out a couple days, now.” Gerson wiped the spilled water off her chin. “Some girl dragged you in here, said somethin’ about you savin’ her life or some malarkey, then just ran.” The old tortoise looked almost as ragged and tired as Undyne, and as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, it seemed like he was taking his first rest in days. “Had to call up...an old friend.” He let out a short, scared laugh. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it, to be honest.”

Undyne was barely listening to him as she tried to prop herself up on her pillows. Her head swam with the sudden altitude, and the room looked like she was viewing it underwater. Suddenly, a bolt of pain went through her skull, and she instinctively brought a hand up to her head.

She touched something soft and gauzy covering half her face.

Through the pain and her still-waking fog, she hadn’t noticed it until her hand was right on it. Undyne felt it again; half of her head had been practically mummified in gauze, thick layers of the stuff wrapping her left eye, the top of her head,

At the foot of the bed, Gerson averted his gaze. “She, eh, saved your life. It could have been a lot worse.”

Undyne kept feeling at the bandage over her face, fingers clawing at the gauze. She’d forgotten the pain entirely, a feeling close to panic coming over her. Scraps of the bandage began floating down into her lap, and she stared at them as she continued scratching at it.

“Hey, hey… hey!” Gerson grabbed her hands, pulling them off her face. “It’s not healed yet, you don’t want to make it worse!”

Undyne ignored him, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, to go back to ripping the bandage off her face. She had to see. She had to know.

Gerson groaned with a mixture of annoyance and helplessness, and let go of one of Undyne’s hands while he reached for something on the table; with half her peripheral vision gone, she couldn’t see what. Not that she really cared; the moment the tortoise loosened his grip, she went right back to the bandage, now really starting to get a solid grip on it and tear handfuls of gauze off her face.

“I told you, stop that!” Gerson set something down on the bed next to Undyne–once again, on her blind side–and grabbed her hand again.

“Nrrgggh!” Undyne flailed, trying to shake him off. She felt like the gauze over her face was choking her somehow, wrapping tighter and tighter around her skull even though she’d torn half of it off by now, a pile of white fabric in her lap, like snow.

“I said STOP!” Gerson was half-commanding, half-pleading with her now, and forcefully pushed her arms down to her sides. “Undyne. Undyne, look at me, girl.” She kept struggling. “ _Look_ at me.”

She stopped, and looked at him. Gerson looked on the verge of tears, and as Undyne met his gaze, he broke it, unable to look her in the face. His expression made her freeze; the typically happy, crotchety old tortoise looking frail and even older than he was. “I’ll-” he swallowed, and pushed on, “I’ll take it off for you. Just don’t...don’t hurt yourself.”

Tentatively, Gerson released Undyne’s small arms, and when she didn’t move them, he lifted his his hands tentatively to her head. Undyne felt the bandage loosen, and the thick gauze began spooling down into her lap. As it came away from her head, she felt a prickly feeling run across her face.

Finally, Gerson sat back, the bandage unraveled ins his hands. He still couldn’t look at Undyne.

Even with the bandage off, Undyne realized she still couldn’t see out of her left eye. Slowly, her hand began to rise to her face.

Just as slowly, Gerson caught her hand and gently set it back down. “Dont.... don’t,” he muttered. He picked up the thing he’d grabbed from the bedside table; a small mirror. He turned it over hesitantly in his hands a few times, then lifted it up. “It’s...probably healed, now. Mostly.”

Undyne stared at her reflection. She looked almost a dozen pounds skinnier, her face gaunt and pale. The shirt she had on wasn’t her own; one of Gerson’s, maybe, hanging large and baggy on her even-thinner-than-normal body. Her hair wasn’t in its usual small ponytail, and hung over her left eye in a ragged curtain.

Slowly, she lifted a hand to her face, watching it rise in the mirror like something alien, an arm that wasn’t her own. It brushed Undyne’s hair back from her face.

In the mirror, her right eye stared, wide and yellow. In the mirror, her left eye gaped, a black hole in her head. She blinked, and the whole world went black for a moment. In some corner of her mind, she prayed she’d seen wrong, that in a moment she’d open two eyes instead of one, look at her face like she was used to seeing in the reflection of Waterfall’s rivers.

She opened her eye. Just the one. The other continued to be a dark pit, like a pure black pearl set in her eye socket.

Another shot of pain went through her skull, and she instinctively put her hand to her missing eye. The palm of her hand met no resistance at the socket. She ground her hand into her face, hoping maybe to force it back into existence, that by just holding on as tightly as possible she could retroactively keep her eye.

The pain spiked and drove all the strength out of her once again. Her hand dropped to the bed again, and she fell backwards. She caught one last glimpse of herself in the mirror as she fell, and then she was staring the ceiling again. Gerson hastily put the mirror back on the table, nearly dropping it, and gently lifted Undyne’s head, wrapping a fresh bandage around her eye.

“Knew it, knew it, isn’t healed yet…” he muttered as he mummified Undyne’s head once again. “Just, don’t touch it for a while. Please.” The gauze tightened around her head, and Gerson sat back. Undyne thought she saw a glint of tears in his eyes.

She tried to sit up again, but even thinking about moving sent waves of pain over her body. Sleep was slowly slipping back over her.

As Undyne passed out, she had only one thought on her mind. It wasn’t the girl from earlier, or the pain pulsing through her body, or even the fact that her eye was gone.

It was that just before she’d fallen back from the mirror, she thought she’d seen a small flash of light in her darkened socket.

 

The dark, hidden pathways and crevices of Waterfall were familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. As Undyne slipped through the darkness, keeping to the mostly-unused back trails, it was like she was looking through a new pair of eyes. Or rather, that she wasn’t looking through a pair of them.

She’d had to sneak out. Undyne knew that Gerson would have insisted on her spending another week in bed if she tried to leave, and she couldn’t keep pretending to be asleep when Papyrus came to visit. And if she had to spend another day inside, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling which felt oppressively close, she thought she might claw her other eye out too. Besides, she felt better anyway.

Undyne leapt over a thick vine on the ground, and as she landed, the world went fuzzy, a sharp ringing penetrating her head. She groped for the vines on the wall to steady herself. It took a few tries; having half the world suddenly a bit darker was still hard to adjust to.

Instinctively, Undyne’s hand went to her face to knead at her eye. Her palm met only the coarse material of the eyepatch Gerson had given her, an old, rough patch of leather that he had maybe used once upon a time. She froze and lowered her hand with shaking slowness, suppressing the feeling of bile frothing in her stomach.

_Maybe Gerson was right,_ she thought, but pressed onward anyway.

She had no clue where she was pressing on to, however. The winding pathways seemed to blur and skip before her eyes, and the usually familiar routes she took felt strange and new. She hit a dead end, turned around, and the path she’d just taken had changed behind her. The walls pressed in close, crowding, crushing, suffocating.

Undyne started to run.

The caves blurred around her, the luminous stones and plants whizzing by in flashes of color. Everything felt too small, too close, too confining. She pushed through a curtain of vines, leaving them shaking behind her as she streaked for her destination; a place that her brain was screaming at her to go so loudly she couldn’t even hear it.

The walls closed in on her, for real this time. She was pushing through a small crevice, pitch black, any thoughts replaced with an overwhelming, deafening scream in her head. Her eyepatch scraped against a rock; if it wasn’t already gone, it probably would have taken her eye out.

The end of the cave was in sight. It was bright, the crack blindingly bright in the dark of the crevice. Undyne pushed ahead, heedless of the stone scraping at her, her eye fixated on that welcoming, warming, healing light ahead.

With one last push, the walls so close it felt like they had already flattened her, Undyne stumbled from the cave and out into the open. She tripped, nearly fell on her face, got her balance again, and looked up, eagerly and desperately searching for the light.

It wasn’t there. Maybe the dark of the crevice had made it look brighter, maybe her eye was just sensitive, but outside was just as dimly lit as the rest of Waterfall. She’d pushed out onto the long, flat plain, the rain falling down from above, the lights on the ceiling dim for the moment.

Undyne tried to catch her breath and found she couldn’t. Even out here, on the wide-open plain so huge she could barely see the other side, she felt trapped, confined, caged. She started running again, rain stinging her face, every drop on her eyepatch like a burning coal.

She felt tears streaming down half her face.

A rock (on her left, again) caught her foot and sent Undyne sprawling, the ground rushing up to meet her. She landed on her shoulder, the fall sending a numbing vibration through her body. Undyne hit, rolled, and came to a rest on her back, the rain falling on her face.

She lay there, half because of exhaustion and pain, half because the willingness to get up had suddenly broken inside her. The rain came down, washing away her tears just as more came springing up.

_It’s not fair._

The thought sounded childish, immature, but it was all she could think. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she’d lost an eye just for sticking up for someone in need. It wasn’t fair that that girl was being tormented and bullied in the first place. It wasn’t fair that Papyrus was better than her at magic, even though she’d been practicing for months and he hadn’t.

Slowly, the rain stopped. The lights in the ceiling began to twinkle. Undyne stared up at them; the ones that had looked so impossibly far away seemed to press in at her, crushing her from miles away.

It wasn’t fair they were all trapped underground.

Trapped.

_Perhaps if he had, I would not have had to come here tonight._

The stranger’s voice came back to Undyne, unbidden. What had it meant by that? Gerson had mentioned the king, and-

Her history lessons came back to her in a rush. The barrier, the king, seven human souls.

She sat up. Like magic, the clouds began to lift, revealing the twinkling lights of the capitol in the distance.

In the back of her mind and on her shoulder, she felt a low, primal growl.

 

The capitol was very quiet, very empty, and very bright.

It hadn’t been hard to get inside; Undyne didn’t even have to sneak. She just went through Hotland, took the elevator, and was there within minutes.

Minutes in the elevator, that is; when the doors opened with a _ding_ and Undyne stepped through them, the sensation of heaviness from the elevator’s swift ascent took a few seconds to leave her.

She stepped out, blinking in the sudden light. Even though the capitol seemed to twinkle from a distance, up close it was simply blinding; pure white marble stretching for miles. At the brightest time of “day” underground, it was like standing on the sun.

Undyne felt her feet waver beneath her; it was partially the elevator ride, partially the blinding light, partially the sudden height, and partially the fact that she still wasn’t fully recovered. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and turned from the view of the city.

She had someone to meet.

Her feet padded softly along the hallways. Even in the utter silence, her footsteps barely seemed to echo, the sound simply falling away into nothing. It was quiet enough that any sound should have been like an explosion, but the silence simply pervaded everything, muffling Undyne’s very heartbeat.

It almost dampened the fire propelling Undyne forward, the only thing keeping her on her feet despite the buzzing pain and dizziness in her skull, pushing her ahead with aimless determination.

Almost. But the anger, focused on one person with no real reason, drove her onwards, down the grand hallway and ever-closer to the throne room, the rusty old knife she had dug from the recesses of the dump clutched in her white-knuckled hand.

Finally, she stood at the doors of the throne room. They towered tall above her, massive doors swung outward ajar, leaving just a small crack through which a bit of light streamed.

Undyne peered through the crack. Inside…

Her brain almost couldn’t process what was inside.

She rubbed her eyes (eye; one hand on her red-with-tears right, the other bumping off the eyepatch out of habit) and looked again.

She hadn’t been imagining it. Flowers. The same as the small patch in the dump, but multiplied by at least a dozen; a garden of yellow petals in the center of the room, surrounding a single throne.

And there was something about the light that spilled through the crack in the door; it was… different. Not the slightly-eerie light of glowing gems and luminous mushrooms, not the extreme glowing heat of Hotland’s magma, but a warm, healing light, full of life. Natural light. Even with just the small beam shining through the doorway, Undyne could feel the pure warmth on her skin.

For a moment, her fire went out. It was the pacifying effect of the flowers in the dump, multiplied accordingly.

Then a shadow crossed in front of the door, blocking the light for a moment, depriving Undyne of its healing warmth, letting the fire spark back up inside her. She recoiled from the door in surprise, ducking to the side, her heart pounding with the fear of being discovered. When nothing happened– no stern voice calling for her, no door opening, nothing– she cautiously looked back in.

The stream of light had resumed, but she no longer noticed it, barely even felt it. Her attention was focused solely on the figure now bent over in the flower patch, their back to Undyne.

She heard that roar again, felt those claws in her shoulder. A phantom pain scorched through her missing eye, and her hand clawed at the eyepatch until it receded. Growling, she peered back through the door, her hand in a death grip on the knife again.

He had his back to her. He was totally exposed. If she could just stay quiet…

Undyne pushed an arm through the crack and slowly began squeezing her way through. Her right eye stayed locked on him, unblinking with anger and resentment and a whirlpool of emotion. It was a tight fit through the doorway; as she pushed, the heavy door shifted an inch, letting out a tiny, high squeak that seemed to pierce the silence.

She fell through the doorway, world turning sideways as she dropped into the grass and vines, her heart stopping; she’d lost the element of surprise for sure–

When she looked up, expecting to see him turning, coming to her, raising a weapon, she was shocked to see he hadn’t moved from his spot, still bent over in the flowers. As Undyne got to her feet, foliage rustling around her, she heard another sound; humming, a quiet, tuneless, and most of all, happy noise coming from him.

After the silence of the hallway, it sounded like a battle cry. Undyne’s blood boiled, her grip tightening again on the knife with enough force to crack the wooden handle, splinters of wood driving themselves into her hand with a pain she didn’t even notice.

_Go._

The roar wasn’t a voice, it wasn’t quite clear enough, but it had become commanding, demanding, driving.

_It’s his fault._

Her feet began moving, first in a slow, stumbling walk, then to a run, then to a full sprint. Even with Undyne’s feet swishing through the flowers, he still didn’t turn.

_He’s weak._

She raised the knife.

_He deserves it._

A hoarse, painful, guttural, crying scream rose from Undyne’s throat. At the sound of her voice, he finally began to turn; slowly, ever so slowly.

_Do it._

Undyne brought the knife down, aiming for his back, at a small patch where the armor didn’t cover and white fur showed through.

The blade slipped between the plates, struck home, and shattered. The force of Undyne’s stab carried her forward, slamming face-first into his back, and then rebounding, now even more dazed and staring stupidly at the shattered hilt in her hand, pieces of broken wood piercing her palm.

She looked up. Looking down at her, an expression of kindly confusion on his face, was the king.

“Excuse me, my dear, are you alright?”

No malice in his voice. No fear of an attempted assassin. Just a gentle, concerned look of confusion at the small, dirty girl who didn’t even come up to his chest.

Asgore uncertainly extended a hand to her. “I’m sorry for not noticing you come in, I-”

Undyne snapped.

She let out another desperate, enraged scream and threw herself at him, fists raining down on his torso, bouncing off his shining, golden armor. “I HATE YOU!”

He was taken aback. Undyne continued to rain blows on his torso while Asgore simply stood there, unsure of what to do.

“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”

The roaring in her head egged her on.

“IT’S BECAUSE OF YOU!”

It screamed at her, deafening her every thought.

“I’LL BEAT YOU UP! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL...I’LL... I’ll…”

It wasn’t a roar anymore.

Undyne’s fists continued to bounce of his armor, which was shining brightly, so brightly, too brightly as it reflected the sunlight streaming into the garden. That had to be it. The sunlight. It was too bright. It was in her eyes. That had to explain the tears.

It was a sob. A quiet, mewling sound inside her that bubbled up and came out in jerking, clenching gasps, choking up her throat and sending tears flowing from her eyes. The claws in her shoulder were a sad, desperate grip of a lost animal, afraid and alone, digging into her because it had to hold onto something or else it would be lost, lost without a reason to exist, lost without someone or something to hate and throw itself at.

Her weak punches were hurting her more than they hurt him. She couldn’t speak any more, couldn’t scream, couldn’t angrily blame him for everything that had gone wrong, could only cry and sob as her tiny, ineffectual attacks bounced off his chestplate.

“Um…”

The single syllable stopped Undyne cold. She looked up through her teary eyes and saw him standing above her. Standing; not towering, not menacing, just… standing there. A couple times taller than her and several times wider, but with the presence of a stuffed teddy bear.

“Ah, I’m sorry, but…” He was hesitant, unsure how to respond to the kid standing before him. “Do you… really want to know how to beat me?”

Undyne froze for a moment, the pleasant, calm tone of his voice throwing her. Her vision was swimming with tears and blurring with the pain in her head.

She took in one last deep, choking breath. “YES!”

It was a plea. She was full of directionless anger, resentment, and pain, and even though she was pleading and throwing herself on his mercy, she did it with a scream and a spirit of defiance.

Smiling gently, Asgore reached out a hand and patted Undyne’s head. “Well… let’s get to it, then.”

 

Undyne woke up; this time, at once instead of as a long process. And this time, the ceiling was very unfamiliar.

She stared up at a white wooden ceiling, smooth and featureless. The sheets around her felt soft and heavy, yet not too warm or cold. And this time, there was no overwhelming pain.

Undyne sat up. The rest of the room was the same white wood; the floors, the bed, the wardrobe in the corner, the chest at the foot of the bed. It looked spotlessly clean and well-kept, but at the same time, unused; the cleanliness of a museum exhibit, not of a lived-in room kept clean.

“Oh! You’re awake!”

The voice came from behind. Undyne turned, and saw the king standing in the doorway.

She almost didn’t recognize him. The gilded armor was gone, replaced with an old sweater that had been patched in a dozen places and a pair of sweatpants. In his hands was a small tray, two steaming mugs balanced on it. He hurried to the bedside, taking great care with the tray, and set it down on the bedside table.

Asgore cleared his throat. “I feel I ought to apologize for my behavior earlier. I was being… quite insensitive, I suppose.”

Undyne blinked (winked?). She had tried to kill him– assassination, regicide, the works– and here he was apologizing.

“I suppose it’s not uncommon for one your age to want to join the guard, after all. Still-” He cleared his throat again, like he had to dislodge the words he said before they came out. “Still, at your age, there are a great many other opportunities available to you, and the usual age of the guard is quite older, so…”

Asgore looked at his hands, then took one of the mugs from the tray and held it out to Undyne. “Cocoa?”

She blinked, and took it without thinking, her mind still processing what the king was saying. Asgore smiled and took his own mug, taking her silence as acceptance. “When you are recovered, I will escort you back to Waterfall.”

Asgore stood, mug still in hand, and turned for the door.

“W-Wait.”

Undyne’s voice was quiet and hoarse. “Were… were you serious?”

Asgore blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“When you said…” Undyne swallowed, her throat dry and burning. “When you said you would show me how to beat you.”

“Oh.” Asgore fidgeted nervously in the doorway, his large frame looking much smaller now. “I, er…”

Undyne plunged ahead. “I w-want to join the guard! I want… I want to help protect people! Please!”

The small girl, little more than a bag of skin and bones, wrapped in the blankets and clutching a mug of cocoa, didn’t make a very intimidating figure. Asgore sighed and turned away. “In time, maybe. But not now. You’ve yet to grow up, little one, and you don’t want to rush it.”

_You’re wrong,_ she thought. _I have grown up._

“You’re…” Undyne tried to climb out of bed; it wasn’t easy with the covers coiling about her and the mug in her hands. She nearly spilled the cocoa all over the sheets as she tossed them off and leapt out of bed. “I have…”

She didn’t finish her sentence; the room wobbled around her as her vision blurred. The mug nearly fell out of her hands, and she grabbed at the bedframe to steady herself.

“Oh no. Oh my goodness.” Asgore rushed over, catching both Undyne and her mug before she could topple to the floor. “Come now, let’s get you back in bed. Just rest.” He took the mug from her and set it back on the tray as he lifted Undyne, practically one-handed, and set her back in the bed. “Just rest. Once you’re better, we can get you back home. I’m sure there’s plenty of people worried about you.”

Undyne let out a bitter, humorless snort. “No, there’s not.” She felt lightheaded as Asgore pulled the covers over her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Undyne sank into the soft, fluffy pillows. At least she could enjoy these for a moment, she thought in her daze.

“Well, I’ll call your parents, and-”

“Don’t have any.” She was falling asleep naturally for once, probably the first time in at least a week, floating off on the soft, warm bed.

“What?”

Undyne didn’t– couldn’t– respond. As she slipped off silently, Asgore stayed sitting by the bedside, watching her.

 

Once again, Undyne woke up to the now-slightly-less-unfamiliar ceiling. For the first time in a while, she felt actually well rested. Sitting up and pushing the covers off, she saw Asgore was nowhere to be found.

Hesitantly, Undyne hopped out of bed. The world didn’t suddenly tumble once she was on her own two feet, which she took as a good sign.

The rest of the house was the same white wood, the only color being yellow flowers in vases along the hallway. It was quiet, but not the same quiet as the hallway had been; not oppressively silent, but comfortably quiet. As Undyne’s feet padded along the white wood, she realized why; it wasn’t actually silent. From down the hall, she could hear movement in another room as she got closer. The clink of utensils, a hiss of steam, a quiet humming.

She looked uncertainly through a doorway, into the living room; a large recliner, table, bookshelf, and fireplace adorned the room. Through another doorway off the living room, she heard the sounds coming more distinctly.

Undyne was barely two steps into the room when Asgore came in, plates in his hands. “Oh! You’re up!” He bustled over to the table and set the plates down, pulling a chair out for Undyne. “I, erm, made some lunch. It’s some things from my garden.”

A little uncertainly, Undyne took a seat. The plate was piled with steamed vegetables and rice, topped with some sort of sauce. She took a cautious bite, then started digging in vigorously. Asgore smiled with relief, and the sound of clinking forks and knives filled the room for a while.

Finally, with Undyne still attacking her plate, Asgore put his utensils down and steepled his hands. “Erm, is it good?”

Mouth full of food, Undyne nodded. “Yeash!”

“Hm.” Asgore nodded. “Well, for dinner I think I’ll make… shepherd's pie, maybe. How does that sound?”

Undyne looked up from her plate again. “Huh?”

Asgore kept twiddling his thumbs. “And for tomorrow, maybe… some bread, fresh fruit, and the like for breakfast?” He smiled nervously at Undyne, his face hopeful and a little bit sad.

Realization began to dawn on Undyne’s face. She grinned through a mouthful of greens. “Aaaaaaaaaand maybe some training after that?”

“Well… let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be a bit of ramble here, so feel free to skip.  
> Wow. Okay. Holy shit.  
> This fic was a long, LONG time in the making; I started it back in March, and it was really just a happy coincidence that I finished right before the second anniversary. To be technical, I've been writing this fic for 1/4 of Undertale's lifetime, lol. It's also my first serious, angsty fic! Wow!  
> Also of note; about a year ago, just before Undertale's first anniversary, I came out as trans. I definitely credit Undertale as being one of the main reasons I was able to come to terms with my gender identity as a trans woman, so both anniversaries mean a lot to me. It's been a very crazy and not all sunshine-and-roses year, but I'm in a better place than I was one year ago, and I'm thankful to both Toby Fox and the entire Undertale fandom for it.  
> Anyway, that's my dumb ramble. Thank you for reading, and thanks for all your support!


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